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Rest of the weeks theatre

Whistling PsycheAlmeida Coming from Sebastian Barry, the author of Our Lady of Sligo, this is a deeply disappointing play. Barry is the chronicler of people in no-man’s-land: on the run from the world, or themselves. This 110-minute two-hander is about Florence Nightingale (Claire Bloom) and her near-contemporary Dr Barry (Kathryn Hunter), the Irish medical pioneer. They meet in a deserted railway station, perhaps in the afterlife: two great achievers brooding on the insignificance of life and achievement. For the first time, I find something self-admiring in Barry’s writing: it is ornate, dense, overlyrical. Worse, it is undramatic — two recitals of anger and grievance. This is probably a text for reading, though it entirely lacks the drive and intensity of Barry’s own fiction. The final effect is one of impatience and respectful fatigue.